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French and Indian war
So basely the Indian found back and the french decided to go to war. The Indian took the weapon from the french to battle with. The French did a lot of trade. The french also bring alot of diseases. -
Revenue Act of 1762
Revenue Act of 1762,which required absentee customs officers to take up their posts in the colonies, rather than hiring underpaid assistants to do their work. The ministry also instructed the Royal Navy to seize American vessels carrying food crops from the mainland colonies to the French West Indies. It was absurd, declared a British politician, that French armies attempting to Destroy one English province are actually supported by Bread raised in another. -
Currency Act of 1764
The Currency Act ensured that merchants would no longer be paid in money printed in the colonies, boosting their profits and British wealth. -
the Sugar Act of 1764
The 1764 act was intended to make the trade in foreign molasses legal for the first time and collect a duty of 3 pence per gallon, which merchants could pay and still turn a profit. -
The rebellion of 1765- 1770
In the name of reform, Grenville had thrown down the gauntlet to the Americans. The colonists had often resisted unpopular laws and aggressive governors, but they had faced an all-out attack on their institutions only once before in 1686, when James II had unilaterally imposed the Dominion of New England. Now the danger was even greater because both the king and Parliament backed reform. -
the Stamp Act
Which met in New York City in October 1765. The congress protested the loss of American “rights and liberties,” especially the right to trial by jury. It also challenged the constitutionality of both the Stamp and Sugar Acts by declaring that only the colonists’ elected representatives could tax them. -
Crowd Action
Disciplined mobs demanded the resignation of stamp-tax collectors. In Boston, a group calling itself the Sons of Liberty burned an effigy of collector Andrew Oliver and then destroyed Oliver’s new brick warehouse. -
Troops to Boston
American resistance only increased British determination. When the Massachusetts assembly’s letter opposing the Townshend duties reached London, Lord Hillsborough, the secretary of state for American affairs, branded it “unjustifiable opposition to the constitutional authority of Parliament.” To strengthen the “Hand of Government” in Massachusetts, Hillsborough dispatched General Thomas Gage and 2,000 British troops to Boston. -
Declaratory Act of 1766
which explicitly reaffirmed Parliament’s “full power and authority to make laws and statutes … to bind the colonies and people of America … in all cases whatsoever.” By swiftly ending the Stamp Act crisis, Rockingham hoped it would be forgotten just as quickly. -
Charles Townshend Steps In
That was the case in 1767, when George III named William Pitt to head a new government. Pitt, chronically ill and often absent from parliamentary debates, left chancellor of the exchequer Charles Townshend in command. Pitt was sympathetic toward America; Townshend was not. He had strongly supported the Stamp Act, and in 1767 he promised to find a new source of revenue in America. -
Townshend Act of 1767
had both fiscal and political goals. It imposed duties on colonial imports of tea, glass, lead paper, and painters’ colors that were expected to raise about £40,000 a year. -
A Second Boycott and the Daughters of Liberty
Most colonial leaders rejected the legitimacy of Townshend’s measures. In February 1768, the Massachusetts assembly condemned the Townshend Act, and Boston and New York merchants began a new boycott of British goods. Throughout Puritan New England, ministers and public officials discouraged the purchase of “foreign superfluities” and promoted the domestic manufacture of cloth and other necessities -
The Boston Massacre
Even as Parliament was debating North’s repeal, events in Boston guaranteed that reconciliation between Patriots and Parliament would be hard to achieve. Between 1,200 and 2,000 troops had been stationed in Boston for a year and a half. Soldiers were also stationed in New York, Philadelphia, several towns in New Jersey, and various frontier outposts in these years, with a minimum of conflict or violence. -
THE ROAD TO INDEPENDENCE, 1771–1776
Repeal of the Townshend duties in 1770 restored harmony to the British Empire, but strong feelings and mutual distrust lay just below the surface. In 1773, those emotions erupted, destroying any hope of compromise. Within two years, the Americans and the British clashed in armed conflict. Despite widespread resistance among loyal colonists, Patriot legislators created provisional governments and military forces, the two essentials for independence. -
A Compromise Repudiated
Once aroused, political passions are not easily quieted. In Boston, Samuel Adams and other radical Patriots continued to warn Americans of imperial domination and, late in 1772, persuaded the town meeting to set up a committee of correspondence “to state the Rights of the Colonists of this Province.” Soon, eighty Massachusetts towns had similar committees. -
Lord Dunmore’s War
In the years since the end of Pontiac’s Rebellion, at least 10,000 people had traveled along Braddock’s and Forbes’s Roads to the headwaters of the Ohio River, where Fort Pitt had replaced Fort Duquesne during the Great War for Empire, and staked claims to land around Pittsburgh. -
The East India Company and the Tea Act
Committees of correspondence sprang into action when Parliament passed the Tea Act of May 1773. The act provided financial relief for the East India Company, a royally chartered private corporation that served as the instrument of British imperialism. The company was deeply in debt; it also had a huge surplus of tea as a result of high import duties, which led Britons and colonists alike to drink smuggled Dutch tea instead. -
The Tea Party
The Sons of Liberty prevented East India Company ships from delivering their cargoes in New York, Philadelphia, and Charleston. In Massachusetts, Royal Governor Hutchinson was determined to land the tea and collect the tax. To foil the governor’s plan, artisans and laborers disguised as Indians boarded three ships — the Dartmouth, the Eleanor, and the Beaver — on December 16, 1773, broke open 342 chests of tea. -
The Continental Congress Responds
Patriot leaders convened a new continent-wide body, the Continental Congress. Twelve mainland colonies sent representatives. Four recently acquired colonies — Florida, Quebec, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland — refused to send delegates, as did Georgia, where the royal governor controlled the legislature. -
the Coercive Acts
The king was outraged. “Concessions have made matters worse,” George III declared. “The time has come for compulsion.” Early in 1774, Parliament passed four Coercive Acts to force Massachusetts to pay for the tea and to submit to imperial authority. -
Continental Association
When the First Continental Congress established the Continental Association in 1774 to enforce a third boycott of British goods, it quickly set up a rural network of committees to do its work. In Concord, Massachusetts, 80 percent of the male heads of families and a number of single women signed a “Solemn League and Covenant” supporting nonimportation. -
VIOLENCE EAST AND WEST
By 1774, British authority was wavering. At the headwaters of the Ohio, the abandonment of Fort Pitt left a power vacuum that was filled by opportunistic men, led by a royally appointed governor acting in defiance of his commission. In Massachusetts, the attempt to isolate and punish Boston and the surrounding countryside backfired as Patriots resisted military coercion. Violence resulted in both places, and with it the collapse of imperial control. -
Armed Resistance in Massachusetts
Meanwhile, as the Continental Congress gathered in Philadelphia in September 1774, Massachusetts was also defying British authority. In August, a Middlesex County Congress had urged Patriots to close the existing royal courts and to transfer their political allegiance to the popularly elected House of Representatives. Subsequently, armed crowds harassed Loyalists and ensured Patriot rule in most of New England. -
The Second Continental Congress Organizes for War
A month later, in May 1775, Patriot leaders gathered in Philadelphia for the Second Continental Congress. As the Congress opened, 3,000 British troops attacked American fortifications on Breed’s Hill and Bunker Hill overlooking Boston. After three assaults and 1,000 casualties, they finally dislodged the Patriot militia. Inspired by his countrymen’s valor, John Adams exhorted the Congress to rise to the “defense of American liberty” by creating a continental army. -
Independence Declared
Inspired by Paine’s arguments and beset by armed Loyalists, Patriot conventions urged a break from Britain. In June 1776, Richard Henry Lee presented Virginia’s resolution to the Continental Congress: “That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states.” Faced with certain defeat, staunch Loyalists and anti-independence moderates withdrew from the Congress, leaving committed Patriots to take the fateful step. -
The Federalists Implement the Constitution
The Constitution expanded the dimensions of political life by allowing voters to choose national leaders as well as local and state officials. The Federalists swept the election of 1788, winning forty-four seats in the House of Representatives; only eight Antifederalists won election. As expected, members of the electoral college chose George Washington as president. John Adams received the second-highest number of electoral votes and became vice president. -
Devising the New Government
Foreign Affairs (State), Finance (Treasury), and War. To head the Department of State, Washington chose Thomas Jefferson, a fellow Virginian and an experienced diplomat. For secretary of the treasury, he turned to Alexander Hamilton, a lawyer and his former military aide. The president designated Jefferson, Hamilton, and Secretary of War Henry Knox as his cabinet, or advisory body. -
The Political Crisis Of The 1790s
The final decade of the eighteenth century brought fresh challenges for American politics. The Federalists split into two factions over financial policy and the French Revolution, and their leaders, Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson, offered contrasting visions of the future. Would the United States remain an agricultural nation governed by local officials, as Jefferson hoped -
Hamilton’s Financial Program
George Washington’s most important decision was choosing Alexander Hamilton as secretary of the treasury. An ambitious self-made man of great intelligence, Hamilton was a prominent lawyer in New York City who had married into the influential Schuyler family, which owned land in the Hudson River Valley. At the Philadelphia convention, he condemned the “democratic spirit” and called for an authoritarian government and a president with near-monarchical powers. -
Creating a National Bank
In December 1790, Hamilton asked Congress to charter the Bank of the United States, which would be jointly owned by private stockholders and the national government. Hamilton argued that the bank would provide stability to the American economy, which was chronically short of capital, by making loans to merchants, handling government funds, and issuing bills of credit — much as the Bank of England had done in Great Britain. -
The Bill Of Rights
These ten amendments, known as the Bill of Rights, safeguard fundamental personal rights, including freedom of speech and religion, and mandate legal procedures, such as trial by jury. By protecting individual citizens, the amendments eased Antifederalists’ fears of an oppressive national government and secured the legitimacy of the Constitution. -
Jefferson’s Agrarian Vision
Hamilton paid a high political price for his success. As Washington began his second four-year term in 1793, Hamilton’s financial measures had split the Federalists into bitterly opposed factions. Most northern Federalists supported the treasury secretary, while most southern Federalists joined a group headed by Madison and Jefferson. -
THE NEW METROPOLIS
Mark Twain, arriving in New York in 1867, remarked, “You cannot accomplish anything in the way of business, you cannot even pay a friendly call without devoting a whole day to it…. [The] distances are too great.” But new technologies allowed engineers and planners to reorganize urban geographies. -
The End of Armed Resistance
As the nation consolidated control of the West in the 1870s, Americans hoped that Grant’s peace policy was solving the “Indian problem.” In the Southwest, such formidable peoples as the Kiowas and Comanches had been forced onto reservations. The Diné or Navajo nation, exiled under horrific conditions during the Civil War but permitted to reoccupy their traditional land, gave up further military resistance. -
Western Myths and Realities
The post–Civil War frontier produced mythic figures who have played starring roles in America’s national folklore ever since: “savage” Indians, brave pioneers, rugged cowboys, and gun-slinging sheriffs. Far from being invented by Hollywood in the twentieth century, these oversimplified characters emerged in the very same era when the nation incorporated the West. Pioneers helped develop the mythic ideal. -
Fighting Dirt and Vice
As early as the 1870s and 1880s, news reporters drew attention to corrupt city governments, the abuse of power by large corporations, and threats to public health. Researcher Helen Campbel reported on tenement conditions in such exposés as Prisoners of Poverty (1887). -
THE RISE OF BIG BUSINESS
In the late 1800s, industrialization in Europe and the United States revolutionized the world economy. It brought large-scale commercial agriculture to many parts of the globe and prompted millions of migrants — both skilled workers and displaced peasants — to cross continents and oceans in search of jobs. Industrialization also created a production glut. The immense scale of agriculture and manufacturing caused a long era of deflation, when prices dropped worldwide . -
Innovators in Enterprise
As rail lines stretched westward between the 1850s and 1880s, operators faced a crisis. As one Erie Railroad executive noted, a superintendent on a 50-mile line could personally attend to every detail. But supervising a 500-mile line was impossible; trains ran late, communications failed, and trains crashed. Managers gradually invented systems to solve these problems -
The Corporate Workplace
Before the Civil War, most American boys had hoped to become farmers, small-business owners, or independent artisans. Afterward, more and more Americans — both male and female — began working for someone else. Because they wore white shirts with starched collars, those who held professional positions in corporations became known as white-collar workers, a term differentiating them from blue-collar employees, who labored with their hands. -
On the Shop Floor
Despite the managerial revolution at the top, skilled workers — almost all of them men — retained considerable autonomy in many industries. A coal miner, for example, was not an hourly wageworker but essentially an independent contractor, paid by the amount of coal he produced. -
Strategies of Survival
Though the warpath closed, many Native peoples continued secretly to practice traditional customs. Away from the disapproving eyes of agents and teachers, they passed on their languages, histories, and traditional arts and medicine to younger generations. Frustrated missionaries often concluded that little could be accomplished because bonds of kinship and custom were so strong. Parents hated to relinquish their children to off-reservation boarding schools. -
The Movement for Social Settlements
Some urban reformers focused their energies on building a creative new institution, the social settlement. These community welfare centers investigated the plight of the urban poor, raised funds to address urgent needs, and helped neighborhood residents advocate on their own behalf. At the movement’s peak in the early twentieth century, dozens of social settlements operated across the United States. -
The Limits of Machine Government
The scale of urban problems became dramatically evident in the depression of the 1890s, when unemployment reached a staggering 25 percent in some cities. Homelessness and hunger were rampant; newspapers nationwide reported on cases of starvation, desperation, and suicide. To make matters worse, most cities had abolished the early nineteenth-century system of outdoor relief, which provided public support for the indigent. -
Newcomers and Neighborhoods
Explosive population growth made cities a world of new arrivals, including many young women and men arriving from the countryside. Traditionally, rural daughters had provided essential labor for spinning and weaving cloth, but industrialization relocated those tasks from the household to the factory. Finding themselves without a useful household role, many farm daughters sought paid employment. -
Science and Faith
Scientific discoveries received widespread publicity through a series of great world’s fairs, most famously Chicago’s 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition, held (a year late) to mark the four-hundredth anniversary of Columbus’s first voyage to America. At the fairgrounds, visitors strolled through enormous buildings that displayed the latest inventions in industry, machinery, and transportation. -
The Landscape of the Industrial City
As industrialization developed, cities became sites for manufacturing as well as finance and trade. Steam engines played a central role in this change. With them, mill operators no longer had to depend on less reliable water power. Steam power also vastly increased the scale of industry. A factory employing thousands of workers could instantly create a small city such as Aliquippa, Pennsylvania, which belonged body and soul to the Jones and Laughlin Steel Company. -
Religion: Diversity and Innovation
By the turn of the twentieth century, emerging scientific and cultural paradigms posed a significant challenge to religious faith. Some Americans argued that science and modernity would sweep away religion altogether. Contrary to such predictions, American religious practice remained vibrant. Protestants developed creative new responses to the challenges of industrialization, while millions of newcomers built institutions for worship and religious education. -
City Cultures
Despite their dangers and problems, industrial cities could be exciting places to live. In the nineteenth century, white middle-class Protestants had set the cultural standard; immigrants and the poor were expected to follow their betters, seeking “uplift” and respectability. But in the cities, new mass-based entertainments emerged among the working classes, especially youth. These entertainments spread from the working class to the middle class — much to the distress of middle-class parents. -
GOVERNING THE GREAT CITY
One of the most famous muckrakers was Lincoln Steffens, whose book The Shame of the Cities (1904), first published serially in McClure’s magazine, denounced the corruption afflicting America’s urban governments. Steffens used dramatic language to expose “swindling” politicians. He claimed, for example, that the mayor of Minneapolis had turned his city over to “outlaws.” -
Urban Political Machines
In the United States, cities relied largely on private developers to build streetcar lines and provide urgently needed water, gas, and electricity. This preference for business solutions gave birth to what one urban historian calls the “private city”.Private enterprise, Americans believed, spurred great innovations — trolley cars, electric lighting, skyscrapers — and drove urban real estate development.